The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.

Loading ...

Loading ...

This story appears in the {{article.article.magazine.pretty_date}} issue of {{article.article.magazine.pubName}}. Subscribe

We’re up to our eyeballs. That time of year when advertising seems to be as much the focus of attention as the television programs on which it airs, be it the Grammys and Oscars, the Super Bowl, or the Olympic games. As a consumer, you may tweet your comments to friends, review your favorite ads on YouTube, or vote in online polls for best and worst contenders. But, if you make your living in the business of marketing, as I do, you may also ask yourself, relative to one or another of these spots (or a whole bunch of them), “So what?” While many are quite entertaining, the most important criterion for bottom line success in any advertising initiative is whether the idea is connected to the business strategy and whether consumers both get it, and feel compelled to open their wallets, as a result. Any company can create an engaging brand campaign. But doing so without a deep understanding of what the brand stands for in the minds of consumers and actually delivering on this message day in and day out, is one of the most common reasons brands get into trouble.

I bring up this topic for a couple of reasons. First of all, I’ve spent my fair share of time, of late, watching and rating ads using the “so what?” meter. Second, I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Randy Golden, who spent over 20 years as a senior corporate staff member with IBM’s corporate brand architecture and design group (he's now preparing to set-up his own consulting company). We talked at length about the integration (and, lack thereof) of brand management systems with business management. If anyone can impart some lessons learned on the subject, including lessons that IBM learned over time, it’s Randy. What follows is part of our discussion about this matter.

Allen Adamson: Let me go back before I go forward. In 1993, IBM was on the verge of a breakup. Its stock price had hit a twenty-year low. It had posted an $8.1 billion loss, and more than 100,000 employees had been let go. The company struggled under the weight of a management structure that created independent business units with redundant processes, disconnected information systems, not to mention more than seventy advertising agencies, each projecting the image of the brand in its own way. It was at this point that Lou Gerstner, former president of American Express and CEO of RJR Nabisco, was brought in. Some thought it was to help accelerate the breakup of the company into smaller units that could move more quickly and compete with the rising tide of nimble entrepreneurs. But, instead of pulling the company apart, he pushed it together into a more streamlined and integrated company. He understood that IBM’s inherent strength was in its ability to provide total business solutions for its customers. This was what the brand stood for. If you ask most people to talk about this incredibly successful company turn-around, most will likely refer to the ad campaign, “Solutions for a Small Planet.” While the advertising was important communication, it was actually the behind the scenes blocking and tackling that propelled the company, the brand, to its, now, leadership status in the category.

Randy Golden: The challenge in big companies is the ability to act and behave across the business in a way that is consistent with the core brand. So often in brand building, or re-building, the focus starts with the advertising concept. Management becomes enamored with it and sees it as a way to extend the brand message, more broadly, across the business. What had to happen at IBM was taking the time to understand the brand at a deeper level. Management knew that the brand and its values needed to guide all organizational behavior. It had to be the infrastructure around which everything else was developed. Advertising needs to be an integrated part of the overall brand presentation, but not the driver.

AA: After a major ad-heavy event, it’s clear that consumers may like or even understand what the ads are trying to convey. But, the sentiment doesn’t always come through when they actually deal with a given company. It’s got to work both ways - how you transport the message to the business and how you transport the business into the message. That said, IBM is huge. How do you connect a brand idea to behavior that touches the consumer?

RG: Let’s go back to that Lou Gerstner era when IBM began the process of re-aligning the business strategy – the “one IBM” idea. The brand team first did an analysis of the disparate brand presentations across business units along with the myriad disconnected agencies we used globally. I’ll never forget the presentation we created to share the findings of this analysis with senior management. Up popped a logo for IBM Texas. Mr. Gerstner jumped up and said, “What is IBM Texas? We’re one company!” For the brand management group this was a critical and positive turning point. Executive support was essential if we were going to be successful.

AA: It’s integral in any branding work, especially as tremendous an initiative as was being undertaken by IBM. Senior management needs to understand the value of the brand as a business tool.

RG: And, that’s what followed on this initial work. It was actually Lou’s business strategy – the promise of a globally integrated enterprise with integrated solutions – that became one of the foundations for this early brand work. It was the responsibility of the brand team to identify, prioritize, and build integrated systems for presenting the IBM brand across all of the global business units and the numerous departments, products and programs. We started with detailed identity guidance, how to use the logo properly across all applications, as well as a globally integrated system for things like sales collateral and business presentations. We did the foundational work to develop and articulate the core brand attributes and values, things that help truly differentiate the brand.

AA: If stakeholders, employees, can’t understand how the brand character and messaging should be deployed in their individual areas of business, how this allows them to differentiate the brand in the minds of consumers, no amount of advertising can help. You have to get them to be able to internalize it, act on it in their world. Obviously, this is not something that happens overnight, or with an email.

RG: We continued with brand integration for some time, but it was in 2006, with the consolidation of marketing and communications that we really started the deeper work to understand the IBM brand DNA, the brand character. This was the basis for the IBM “smarter planet” agenda and the work developed to communicate and promote the IBM Centennial of 2011. After developing a strategic framework we started to train all employees on what IBM should look like, sound like, be like, not just in marketing and advertising, but in the day-to-day work across all of the businesses. This management system and tools it encompasses have helped foster a community of brand champions and quality, on-brand work.

AA: It can’t be one shot and you’re out. Given changing market, cultural and social dynamics, for IBM, for any brand, I’d think you need to think of it as a journey.

RG: Absolutely. This is not a “launch-and-leave” development process. It’s an interactive, never-ending journey. More than this, you have to build it in as a continued practice. A brand is like an ecosystem. It must be continually nourished and fed.

AA: Looking at this from a business case perspective, it’s an investment that not only reaps improvement in the brand experience, but the efficiency of the business, as a whole. People are not spending a lot of time working on things they don’t need to be working on. The brand is guiding them to do the right thing for the business.

RG: Senior management sees brand systems and management as key to improving the bottom line. And, because the company is so big, the market is so fast-moving, it’s essential in our work to get different points of view from different areas of business at different points in time. When internal teams feel they are part of the development process, they are more willing to adopt and adapt. There’s easier buy-in.

AA: You need to stay flexible, for sure, but you need to stay close to your brand DNA to be seen as credible. It becomes a rallying point for an organization. It shapes the culture. And, it shapes business decisions.

RG: To do it right, you need to understand your enduring brand idea, not just an idea developed for a sixty-second television commercial. Going back to the notion of the evolution of the IBM brand DNA, the current iteration of the IBM brand, “A smarter planet,” is a natural extension of what has been a part of IBM for over 100 years – helping to make the world work better. Having a very strong brand and a strong commitment to the investment, is a key for riding peaks and minimizing the valleys over the long haul.